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[00:00:00] Mark Beckwith: Welcome to Reconciliation Roundtable, where we discuss building bridges of understanding across religious and political difference. I’m your host, Mark Beckwith, retired Bishop of the Diocese of Newark in the Episcopal Church. There are forces and voices in our increasingly polarized world that want us to view each other and the issues of the day in a binary way: this or that, good or bad.

[00:00:30] I want to invite you on a journey beyond the safety of our silos and our egos – to the soul, where we have the opportunity to see things differently. If you enjoy this podcast and would like to find more content like this, please visit my website at markbeckwith.net where you can listen to more episodes, read my weekly blog, and sign up to get weekly reflections in your inbox. I also explore the themes of this podcast further in my book, seeing the Unseen Beyond Prejudices, paradigms, and Party Lines.

[00:01:12] With me today is Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area, which is the largest Methodist church in the country with 24 to 25,000 members. He is the author of more than a dozen books. In 2016, he was appointed by President Obama to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnership.

[00:01:39] He is a leader. He convenes a Leadership Institute for Church Leaders of all perspectives and denominations every year in September. We got to know each other through our common work: my work with Braver Angels, which is a national movement to depolarize America, and Adam’s work with the Campaign for Kindness, which the church launches every season there is a national election. This year it is “Do Unto Others.” Two years ago it was the “Be Kind” campaign and we realized that what we’re trying to do is very similar so we’re partnering with one another and the leader of Church of the Resurrection in that department is Cathy Bien who will be joining us later on in this podcast.

[00:02:26] Deep involvement, wide engagement. Adam, welcome to Reconciliation Roundtable. It’s great to have you.

[00:02:33] Adam Hamilton: Bishop, I’m pleased to be with you today. I really appreciate your work, and actually – I interviewed you for a sermon series two years ago when we were in our Be Just, Be Kind, Be Humble campaign, and it was great. You were quoting Abraham Lincoln, and I just appreciate you very much. Thank you for inviting me to be with you today.

[00:02:48] Mark Beckwith: Thank you, Adam. I appreciate it. As I understand it, you began serving in the church that you are now leading in 1990 with a handful of people meeting in a chapel in a funeral home. And nearly 30 years later, nearly 30, 000 people are members of your church.

[00:03:08] You’ve spoken about that. growth to the Episcopal Church bishops. I remember several years ago. My question is not so much, how did you do that? But what has been your guiding light all these years? And how is that guiding light Change direction or it’s lumination. How has that all happened? How are you guided?

[00:03:33] Adam Hamilton: Well, I appreciate you asking that. So, we started in 1990 and before we began the dream that was welling up in my heart from the time I was in seminary at Southern Methodist University down in Dallas, Texas was this desire to reach thinking people who for whatever reason had turned away from God or the church.

[00:03:49] So I was an associate pastor out at a seminary, and I kept telling the bishop I’d love to start a church in the south side of Kansas City. It’s where I grew up, where I graduated from high school. I’d love to start a church for people who don’t go to church. And I did. In the midst of doing that, I said, “I think for a lot of these folks, we need to speak to their intellect, and then speak to their hearts, and finally call them to action by using their hands in service to God.”

[00:04:11] So the head, the heart, and the hands: three of the four H’s if you were ever in 4H club, which I was not, but it’s also really what’s captured by Jesus great commandment to love God with all that’s within you to love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we said, we want people to do that, but we want to start by demonstrating to them that you can be a thoughtful, person who loves science, who loves the intellect, who can ask questions, who can wrestle with doubt.

[00:04:34] And you can also be a part of a church. And in the process of doing that, you can come to a faith in Christ. It’s intellectually satisfying, spiritually, you know, deepening of our lives and calls us to a better life. So that’s been what’s driven us. Our purpose statement here is to build a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians.

[00:04:54] And that drives everything that we do. It has from the time we began, every sermon that we preach. It’s at the top of every agenda for every committee meeting that we have. It’s how we budget. Everything is driven by this idea. And then aside from that, or in addition to that, we say there are three high level visions for this congregation:

[00:05:12] One is to be used by God to see people’s lives changed to strengthen other churches. So, it’s just an inherent part of who we are that we want to help other churches and strengthen them. And we don’t see them as our competition. We see them as our brothers and sisters, and it doesn’t matter what denomination or where they’re coming from.

[00:05:28] So we want to strengthen churches and then we want to be a part of transforming the world, so it looks more like the kingdom of God. So, I would say if there’s anything that’s driven us over the last 34 years, it’s those two ideas of our purpose statement and our vision for how God might use us.

Mark Beckwith: And that has been consistent over these 30 years?

[00:05:45] Adam Hamilton: It has been. the first year, I’d say we didn’t have it, you know, written down quite like that. It was just something I felt inside, and I was trying to tell people this is what we’re hoping to do. And eventually we put it down in really succinct forms and you’ll find that going all the way back to our very first building, you know, in 20-inch letters on the wall, the purpose statement, our vision statement. So that really has driven us for all these years.

[00:06:09] Mark Beckwith: And as you appeal to the intellect and you do that through the many books that you have written, several of those books, you’ve taken on issues that may be a little bit unfamiliar or jarring to some people in the Christian family. The Bible itself, as you’ve said, the Bible is influenced by God, but not dictated by God, which stands in some opposition to people who think that the Bible is literally the Word of God. You’ve written about and spoken about homosexuality, affirming gay marriage, which has been a strong issue in all of our denominations and most recently in the Methodist Church; navigating COVID. How in your very diverse congregation, as Cathy Bien has explained it to me, you’re 40 percent red, 40 percent blue, and 20 percent others. How do you hold all that together?

[00:07:08] Adam Hamilton: Yeah, you know, that’s not an easy thing to do, and yet I think there’s a lot of people who wish that somebody would try. And churches in particular are partly responsible for the polarization we have in our communities, in our culture.

[00:07:21] So United Methodism, and you come from the Episcopal background, and Episcopalians during the 16th century, you were a via media between the Protestantism on the continent in Europe and Catholicism. And you know, the Anglican church was that way in between. And when Methodism came along, it became a sort of via media itself as well.

[00:07:40] A renewal movement within The Anglican church, the church of England, but in America, you know, its own denomination and this sort of holding intention, things that people typically pull apart. And people ask me, you know, I can’t figure you out. Are you liberal or conservative? And my answer is always, “yes, of course.”

[00:07:56] And they’re like, “no, which are you? And I’m like, “do I have to pick? Cause those are both really good ideas.” I think to be conservative means that you recognize there’s certain things that are just always true, and you want to conserve those. You want to be able to make a case for those. You want to treasure those things.

[00:08:10] And yet, if you’re only conservative without being liberal, you’re stuck and often blind. To be liberal means to be gracious, to be generous of spirit, to be open to reform and seeing things in new ways, which is what we’re doing. And we need to be that. But if we’re only that without conserving anything, then we’re sort of unmoored and just drifting.

[00:08:26] But to hold those two things together is really important, and is what we try to do when we talk about controversial issues or the issues that divide us. I’ve written several dozen books, but the very first book that I wrote was called “Confronting the Controversies.” And that was back in the year 2000. So I’d preach the series of sermons trying to speak into the issues that were dividing us in the year 2000.

[00:08:46] As I was doing that, we took the most controversial issues, the news making issues of that time. And with each one, I would spend time, probably 25 or 30 hours on each of those sermons that week, more time than I normally spend trying to understand, getting into the mindset of the person who was on the right and on the left of that particular issue.

[00:09:04] The death penalty, euthanasia, of course, abortion, homosexuality, prayer in public schools. And, yeah, it was interesting, as I was willing to try to listen to people of faith who held one view or the other, I wanted to be able to articulate to the congregation, “here’s why some Christians hold this view,” and to summarize that view in a way that if you held that view, you would sit there and go, “Yes, that’s my view. You accurately captured what I believe.”

[00:09:30] And then to say, “okay, so that’s that view.” Now here’s where people who are on the left would come in on this and how they substantiate their views by scripture. So, I’d spend, you know, 12 minutes on each of those. And then I would say, “Would it be okay with you if I shared with you just a little of how I see this, having really tried to understand both? You know, here’s where I’m at, and I may be wrong about this, but it’s just my thinking right now, as I try to read and study scripture and understand the heart and character of God.”

[00:09:52] And it was interesting when I could demonstrate that I had understood where someone was coming from and summarize their position in 12 minutes better than they could do it themselves. So that they didn’t feel like I was making a straw man of their position, but I actually understood their heart and I gave them the benefit of the doubt in terms of their motives.

[00:10:08] Then they were willing to listen to hear, Oh, well, yeah. What does pastor Adam think? And it was amazing. The number of people who said, “I came in prepared to be angry at what you were going to say, because I thought you probably were going to disagree with me. And as I listened to you, I began to really think about what you were saying. And I realized, I think maybe I believe that too.”

[00:10:27] And so there were places where my own views changed. My views on the death penalty changed as I was preparing the sermon on the death penalty.

Mark Beckwith: How did it change? From what to what? And how do you account for that?

Adam Hamilton: I would say I was reluctantly in favor of the death penalty, you know, and you find in scripture that there is a death penalty allowed in the Hebrew Bible.

[00:10:45] Having known people who were victims of violent crime, I was willing to say, “Okay, I think that this is allowed by scripture, and this seems just.” And as I spent more time reading about people who were unjustly put to death, as I thought about the New Testament and the apostle Paul having put someone to death and then God using Paul to be the great apostle of the faith, when I thought about how the death penalty was tragically used to put Christ to death, all of those things led me to go, “I really understand why somebody would be okay with the death penalty, but in my own heart, I don’t think that’s a position I want to support anymore.”

[00:11:23] But the willingness to think, to listen, to study and understand both sides. And one of the things that struck me about that as I was working on that sermon series in the book was that controversial issues, you know, the things about which many Americans disagree are controversial because they’re complex and they’re not prone to a simplistic “either / or” “black and white” kind of answer.

[00:11:45] We like things simplified as humans. We like simple, easy answers. We like things to be black and white and often they’re not. And eight years after I wrote confronting the controversies, I wrote a book called seeing gray in a world of black and white. And I wrote that book in part because I felt like, in politics, people are so black and white. And the reality is, when it comes to complex and controversial issues, there’s some truth often on both sides. Now, issues like, “is child abuse wrong?” Well, nobody’s going to argue child abuse is okay. There’s not a significant number of people who think that’s alright.

[00:12:20] It’s not a controversial issue. It’s an issue about which we can all say, “this is wrong.” And there’s a lot of things like that, that we can say, “these are wrong, these are black and white issues.” The things that we’re most divided over tend to be things about which there’s some truth on both sides. Hearing the truth on both sides, and being empathetic to people of a different position can lead us to a better position.

[00:12:41] And that’s part of how we approach challenging issues here at Resurrection.

[00:12:45] Mark Beckwith: And what you’re describing is sort of speaking to the origins of my tradition, the Anglican Church. And the Wesley brothers who created Methodism were Anglican priests who were disdained because they had too much energy and passion.

Adam Hamilton: Yes.

[00:12:59] Mark Beckwith: So we are kindred spirits and we are linked together. Methodists and Episcopal / Anglicans are linked together. But we were created in this tension between Catholicism and Protestantism, as you indicated earlier, and the via media, the way in between. But it’s living into that tension that is just so, so important.

[00:13:19] And you have a lifelong ministry of doing that, and it calls to mind The image, it’s an Italian word, mandorla, which means almond. It’s the shape that’s created when two circles intersect. Think Venn diagram of sixth grade math. And typically now, as you indicate, we have circles where people are encouraged to stay on the outer edge of that circle and just live in the echo chamber in the silo. But the mandorla is this place where people can come together, find calm as purpose, place of resurrections, place of epiphany. It’s a place of transformation and it requires risk and you have been doing that.

[00:14:04] Adam Hamilton: One of the things, Bishop, that I think is interesting and you’ve experienced this, anybody who’s tried to live in that middle place in the tension, is that’s not satisfying to people on either the right or the left. And so, I often think if I’ve got an equal number of angry emails from people on the right and on the left, it probably was the right sermon. It probably said what needed to be said, but it can also be hard and discouraging when you’re being attacked by one side or the other.

[00:14:27] During Black Lives Matter, after all that was going on in our country at that time – and not that we’re done with that, but that’s the period in which that was at the front of the news cycle, I found my progressives felt like I didn’t say enough in the way they wanted it said and the conservatives were angry that I said too much. And there is always that tension.

[00:14:49] One thing I tell pastors when it comes to preaching on hard issues is you have to decide as you’re approaching these issues, is your desire merely to irritate people or is it to influence them? Irritating people is super easy. It takes no skill or to act as a pastor to stand up and to wax eloquent about what you believe without taking seriously the feelings or the emotions or the convictions of people sitting in your church who might be in a different place.

[00:15:14] And then what happens is, you do that enough times they just leave, and they go find a church that’s probably more either conservative or progressive than what your church is and not as balanced. So irritating people is easy. Influencing them is something different. And the idea of influencing that is to change people’s minds.

[00:15:31] The Greek word for that is metanoia, which means repentance. It is to have a change of mind that leads to a change of heart that leads to a change of behavior. And sometimes, you know, we’re coming in blasting hard at something and just hear “The Word of the Lord” kind of thing, but often it’s helping people to listen and to hear.

[00:15:49] And that again, takes more skill than just blasting away. And what we find again is that, in our churches, because we don’t really think about that and we don’t try very hard to listen carefully to the people on the other side, even as pastors, sometimes we end up just creating churches that are echo chambers of our own particular views as opposed to a place that values people in different places, theologically or socially.

[00:16:11] Mark Beckwith: Normally, I think of the prophetic voice as speaking to a particular issue with passion and clarity. I’m more and more inclined to think that the prophetic voice is voices like yourself, who are calling people into that common space, into that mandorla space.

[00:16:30] And it’s hard to do because, as you said, people want to be on one side or the other and to have you reinforce that and I think what Jesus did is called people into that middle space to listen to understand and to be transformed.

Adam Hamilton: I agree.

Mark Beckwith: Moving to the work that we share together, Campaign for Kindness, Do Unto Others, and Braver Angels. We each, in related ways, are inviting people to listen, to be kind, to be civil, to respect one another. How did that come about, that whole Campaign for Kindness? Where was that energy? What was the inspiration?

[00:17:13] Adam Hamilton: So, we’ve tried to be that bridge building congregation in Kansas City since we started, really.

[00:17:18] And so, in, I guess it was 2018 / 2019, we hired a consultant to help us think about a 10 year plan for Church of the Resurrection. Often you think “don’t do a strategic plan for more than three years out, because the world’s changing so fast.” But I knew I was going to retire in 2030, and I thought, there are some things that it’s going to take more than three years to do.

[00:17:37] So, what if we hired somebody to help look at the needs in the community in Kansas City, to look at what’s happening nationally and to work with our congregation to surface their hopes and dreams? We could have done this ourselves, but sometimes it’s helpful to have an outside voice. Our aim was to say, “what are a handful of things that God would call us to do that would take 10 years to do?”

[00:17:57] Some of those things had to do with our own personal spiritual lives and helping people grow deeper in their spiritual lives. Some of them had to do with poverty and inequity and looking to see what we could do over 10 years to close the gap between those who have and those who don’t have. But one of the pieces was, and we began using a term that Ron Heifetz uses in his book, “Leadership Without Easy Answers,” Harvard’s Kennedy School.

[00:18:18] And he talks about how, when you’re looking at leadership, you’re trying to help people see the world as it is. And the world as it’s supposed to be, and then you want to close the gap between those two. In reading that, we thought, Heifetz talking about the world as it’s supposed to be, Jesus called that the kingdom of God.

[00:18:34] So we thought, if I can articulate the world as it’s supposed to be, and we can be clear about where does the world that we live in now not look like the kingdom of God, let’s close the gap. So we use this idea of closing the gap for these various visions. And one of those visions was to close the justice and kindness gap.

[00:18:50] Here we saw, in particular when it came to the kindness part of that, we’re polarized. Even in Kansas City in the Midwest, we’re polarized and what might we do with our church and then with other churches who might join us in closing that gap? And we said, well, what if every 2 years during the election cycle, we ran a what looks like a political campaign where we had political signs?

[00:19:13] The same kind of signs people have in their front yards for candidates, we would have these signs and they would be out there, and we would put those signs everywhere where there are candidate signs, we would put our signs out there too. The first campaign in 2020 was love your neighbor, #LoveYourNeighbor.

[00:19:25] And we said, what if we pick things in the Bible that nobody could disagree with? Who’s going to say, “no, you’re not supposed to love your neighbor.” Everybody should say that. And Jesus said it’s the second great commandment after loving God with everything’s within you. And so we had love your neighbor signs, 5,000 of them that we put in our yards and on the street corners and everywhere else.

[00:19:42] We had a month’s worth of sermons where we encourage people to take the teachings of Jesus and apply them to their political conversations. We asked our people to practice love and kindness towards people who were of the opposite political party. The next time around, we took it a next step further. So two years later, it was Micah 6:8, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God?” It’s like, okay, the Scripture says God requires that of us. And most of the people in Kansas city are people who have at least some nominal faith. How are they going to disagree with that? And so next it was the Be Campaign: be just, be kind, be humble.

[00:20:15] And this time around, we had some TV spots. We had some billboards. We had again, a series of sermons tied in with that, and we started small groups and classes, and this is where you and I first connected. You were a part of those sermons. And so we started looking at the material you had and other people had and how can we incorporate that? And how can we share what we have? And we had 200 or 300 churches, I think, that joined us in that campaign. And this time around with the election coming up, we said, “The Golden Rule.” I mean, every religion has some version of the golden rule. In the case of Jesus, it was “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.”

[00:20:47] And so we said, well, let’s make that our theme this time around. So “Do Unto Others.” We’ve got a heart shape that’s got, you know, red in one corner and blue in the other and purple and the rest of it: “do unto others.” And this time around, we’ll have the sermons. We’ll have the signs, we have t-shirts, we have billboards, we have TV spots, and we’re going to be focusing on how do we live that out and small groups coming together, you know, Republicans and Democrats talking through these things.

[00:21:07] And I’ll share with you this one story of many. One of the guys in our church said:

“I had been really angry with my neighbor for some time. You know, he let his dog go to the bathroom in my yard… We didn’t have a good relationship and we just didn’t really talk.” And he said, “One Sunday or one Saturday, I’m out there mowing my yard and I look over and he’s got the church’s Be Just, Be Kind, Be Humble sign in his front yard and I realized, “oh my gosh, he goes to my church.” And I had my sign but I hadn’t put it out yet. And I started walking over to him when I saw his sign. And he was mowing in his yard and he looked at me like he was concerned. Why am I coming over? And I said, “Hey, I saw your sign. And we go to the same church. I just want to apologize for the way I’ve treated you. I know I haven’t been kind and humble, and I’m really sorry about that. I’d really like to be friends.”

And there was just this cool moment, you know, of these two neighbors. And then we have other people who’ve come to the church and asked, “can we get one of those signs? I really want to have one of those signs up.” There are people who’ve had these signs up now for two years waiting for the next sign to come up. So it’s pretty cool when you have people that don’t go to your church wanting to put one of your signs up in their front yard. This time around with the “Do Unto Others,” I think we have 500 churches so far that are signing up to do this.

[00:22:12] Some are Episcopal churches, and the last time around there were some Episcopal dioceses who joined the Be Just, Be Kind, Be Humble campaign.

[00:22:18] Mark Beckwith: Yeah. Well, Do Unto Others, the leader for that in your congregation, Cathy Bien, who is the Director of Community and Media Relationships at Church of the Resurrection, has now joined the Faith Communities Engagement Team of Braver Angels, and we’re pulling resources together.

[00:22:36] And just want to invite Cathy for a moment to explain some of the things that you’re doing and how we’re working together.

[00:22:44] Adam Hamilton: As Cathy’s coming on, I just want to say what a great job she’s done because we really have tasked her with surfacing ideas, with working with a communications firm that we’ve hired to work on developing some of the media that goes with this. And I’m very proud of Cathy’s work and her leadership in this.

[00:22:59] Cathy Bien: So you were asking some of the things that we’re doing with the campaign. You know, as Adam said, there’s really two calls to action here. One is to ask people to make a personal commitment. “How am I going to treat people as I want to be treated?”

[00:23:13] And then the second is to share the message. And what we do at Resurrection, we’re providing all of the resources people would need to do that. We’ve got a website, campaignforkindness.com, all one word, lowercase, and we’re giving away all of the resources we’ve created: t-shirt designs, yard sign designs, social media posts, as well as sermon outlines and small group studies, curriculum for students, curriculum for children, all of those different ways that churches and other organizations can get involved in the campaign and can support it.

Also, Mark, as you know, as we’ve gotten more involved in Braver Angels we’re really looking at what other resources are out there throughout our country and finding ways to share those and to bring those together. One of the things we’re doing at Resurrection this year is we’re going to be hosting a Braver Angels workshop on having conversations.

[00:24:10] We’re bringing in a facilitator and we’re going to have our congregation go through this experience of practicing. How do we have these loving and kind conversations with people with whom we may disagree?

[00:24:23] Adam Hamilton: Cathy has done a good job of surfacing some of those. So we also work with an organization locally called the American Public Square. And their mission is the same, very much like Braver Angels. They’re focusing on how to bring people together in dialogue. So we’re hosting an event with them also during that period of time. And we’ll be using small group curriculum. And Cathy, is it called table talk or what’s the name of that curriculum?

[00:24:43] Cathy Bien: This is called the After Party, which is a small group study that was developed specifically for how to have better Christian politics.

[00:24:52] Adam Hamilton: And this comes out of the more evangelical churches, but those who are saying we want to be more centrist, we don’t want to be part of the problem. And we thought, well, we’re going to look for great stuff, whether they’re more evangelical, whether more mainline or progressive, we’re going to try to bring those resources together and help people become more kind and just towards one another, less polarized as we’re seeking to live as God’s people in the church and in the community.

[00:25:15] Mark Beckwith: Well, Cathy and I and a leader at the Sojourners community are working together to provide resources for congregations in advance of the election and post-election.

[00:25:28] And one of the things, Cathy, you mentioned is that you’re going to write notes to poll workers, which could be a risky or a fraught undertaking for people on election day. And we at Braver Angels are proposing that two people stand outside of a polling place, one person red, one person blue, with a sign that says “We vote differently, but we’re committed to holding America together.”

[00:25:53] And Sojourners has a grant from the Lily Foundation to work with congregations. So there are more and more entities out there that are trying to do The work to bring people together to hold us together and Adam is the leader of all of this. What do you hope the impact will be and the outcome might be?

[00:26:12] Adam Hamilton: Well, we’re getting ready to launch two more. So we’ll have eight locations here in Kansas City and the various parts of Kansas City you actually can see this. You see it by the number of signs that are in people’s yards. You begin to feel it in the changed way in which people are participating in conversations.

[00:26:33] And I think most people want to be loving and kind towards other people. They recognize that we have a problem when it comes to conversations. And at the same time, they get caught up in the rhetoric and in the, you know, they watch the political conversations of some of our leaders in our country, and it’s easy to get caught up in that.

[00:26:49] We also, of course, look for new sources that confirm our biases. And so we tend to only hear from one source often or one group of sources and I feel like, already, now this is a 10 year goal for us at resurrection. And so we’re in year four. But I feel like we’ve already seen the needle move in Kansas City.

[00:27:07] And I think this is happening too with churches and other communities where they’ve been using this material and they’ve been consistently preaching and teaching and moving people this way. And, the thing is, it’s not about “let’s just be nice for the sake of being nice.” We recognize these are some serious issues, but we can differ on issues and we can speak boldly and courageously for the position we have while at the same time being kind and curious in how we do that and reflecting a humility in that. The most important thing, even though we disagree, I mean, “I disagree with you so, so much, but I still love you. And I know that you’re still loved by God. And consequently. I want to listen. I want to try to hear what you’ve got to say. I hope you’ll maybe listen to what I have to say, but whether we agree or not, I’m still going to be kind to you. I still want to love you.”

And, you know, we’ve got to do that in families. We’ve got to do that in neighborhoods. We’ve got to do that in communities and across the country. And I think, if there’s any organization that can do that, it’s going to be the church.

[00:28:04] And this is what Jack Danforth, he’s an Episcopalian, he was an ambassador and a U.S. Senator from Missouri… he and I had spent quite a bit of time working on the Kindness campaigns. His belief is, like mine and yours, that if there’s any organization in the United States that has enough constituents, and has a message of love and kindness, bringing people together that could maybe move the needle, it’s got to be the church. There is no other organization that is going to stand in that place like the church. And so Braver Angels does amazing work, whether they’re connected with the church or not a whole lot of organizations will, but you know, something like 65 percent of Americans claim to be followers of Jesus. Less than we used to have, but it’s still two thirds of the population.

[00:28:45] What happens when they’re taking seriously what Jesus said about doing unto others, about demonstrating kindness, or, you know, living out the fruit of the Spirit that Paul talks about? Or John, you know, “Beloved, let us love one another. Love is of God. If you don’t love, you don’t know God. “

[00:29:00] Mark Beckwith: We talk about love so much and our culture interprets love as a feeling, which of course it is, but in the Christian context, it’s an act of the will. We’re called to love everyone, even those, no, especially those we don’t want to love. It’s our job. And I remember Cathy saying, as we’re talking about this and someone asked, “what’s your motivation for doing this?”

[00:29:23] And Cathy, you said, “it’s my job.” And there are days When I think, Oh God, the polarization is so intense. The fear level is so high. I’m just going to hide under a rock. This is a very big rock up a steep hill that we’re trying to push. But then I get inspiration in conversations like this and realizing what you’re doing and that there are more and more people who have this desire to be in relationship in spite of our differences.

[00:29:53] And when we drill down and really get to the depth of who we are at the soul level, our differences are not as stark as we think they are.

[00:30:02] Adam Hamilton: It’s interesting too for us, you know, because our purpose statement is to build a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians.

[00:30:11] Our passion around connecting with those non-religious people, most folks who are not involved in a faith community don’t like the way our country is right now. So for us, putting those signs up and they, at the bottom, you know, the ones that we have for our church, say Church of the Resurrection on them, the t shirts, Church of the Resurrection on the back of them.

[00:30:28] And then we give the PDFs, the graphics away for people to be able to do that within their own church name. But part of what happens is people are looking going, wow, that church is actually trying to help us be better as humans. That church is actually calling us to love each other. That church is calling us to be just and kind and humble. What is that church? I’m interested in finding out more about that church. And so I’m reminded Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, let your light so shine before others that they might see your good works and give glory to your father who’s in heaven. And for us, it’s not just putting up campaign signs during that month.

[00:30:56] We’re going to volunteer something like 20,000 hours in the community to serve the community. But our hope is that people see those signs and say, “That church is one that stands for something different than what I’m used to thinking about Christians standing for,” because often people think Christians are divisive, they’re causing the divisions in our country. And we have a chance to say, “Not this church. We’re trying to bring people together.” There’s a whole lot of people who don’t go to church who might consider a church like that.

[00:31:22] Mark Beckwith: You’re not requiring people, you’re inviting them, which is a very different dynamic. You mentioned earlier transforming the world and you spend a lot of time… with 24,000 people, there’s a lot to manage in a congregation, but you’re also in the world inviting people to be in a deeper relationship with one another, I think that’s such a model for the church.

[00:31:47] Cathy Bien: And I think model’s a good word. We are followers of Jesus, and it’s not just about the church. It’s about looking to Jesus, what did he teach us? But as much as anything, what did he show us? And how did he treat people? And how did he bring very diverse groups together? That’s at the core of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

[00:32:11] Adam Hamilton: This Sunday, we’re handing out the yard signs. We’ve got how many, 5,000 or 6,000, Kathy?

Cathy: About 10, 000.

Adam Hamilton: 10,000! Good. I love it. So, 10,000 signs going up in people’s yards. And some of our folks, I did this and some of our folks, they go out and once the campaign starts in October, in earnest, anytime you see campaign signs from the candidates, we stick one of our signs up on that corner.

[00:32:32] And again, “Church of the Resurrection” is pretty small at the bottom. It’s the message that we want people to get, and they go, “okay, in the middle of this divisiveness, That’s a message I want to hold on to.” Let’s do unto others.

[00:32:42] Mark Beckwith: I wonder the challenges for your congregation and the challenges for the country, are they related?

[00:32:48] Adam Hamilton: Yeah. So first of all, in the church, I think every church, but in mainline churches, we’re a microcosm of America writ large. Resurrection, as Cathy said, we’re 40 percent Democrat, 40 percent Republican, 20 percent independent. Our country is divided like that. It may not be exactly the same percentages, but you know, you look at the polls right now for Harris and Trump and they’re like 49% to 48%.

[00:33:13] So we’re deeply divided, and we’re divided about a lot of things. So a lot of pastors are unwilling to talk about the thing. So you have two opposites. You’ve got pastors who talk about only political things and what’s going on. And they typically have a very clear message for people. And then you have pastors who are afraid to talk about anything controversial because they’re going to upset people or they’re going to offend people.

[00:33:32] And they’ve been hurt by that in the past. So they’ve learned just to keep their nose, the grindstone, and they’re going to preach on things that are not controversial. I think we have to be able to talk about the things that are moral issues that divide us and almost every political issue. Underneath it is a moral issue.

[00:33:47] And so there’s places for us to talk about that, but we can talk about that again, in a way that models how as a nation, we hope people will talk about it. Let’s try to understand why people stand in this place. Why 48 percent of our population stands here. Let’s try to understand why 49 percent stand over here.

[00:34:03] And then let’s ask the question. Is there any way that our faith might influence where we fall on this or how we see this? You know, I might be a Republican, but I can acknowledge that there’s some good stuff Democrats have to say. I have to own that there’s some things that are important there. Or I might be a Democrat and say, you know, I think there’s some things that Republicans are saying I should at least consider whether that might be right or not.

[00:34:23] So I think we’ve got to be able to talk about those things. I found what our congregation does not appreciate is if I’m going to stand up and offer an overly simplistic sermon. about some complex issue and tell them, you know, this is how I think it ought to be. They’re not going to appreciate that, but they’re also, they’re not going to expect that of me.

[00:34:41] They appreciate it when I recognize the complexity, when I recognize that there are people who might love God and love their neighbor and still hold a view different than my own, but thoughtfully be able to say, you know, here’s some reasons why I think what Jesus says might point us towards this kind of view or, treating people in this way.

[00:34:58] Even when it comes to poverty, you know, almost everybody agrees poverty is bad. And, it shouldn’t be there, but where we begin to disagree is what are the root causes of poverty and then how should the government address it? And so we have different views of what’s the role of government. And, what’s the role of the church.

[00:35:12] And so when you can acknowledge that and say, okay, but we have to be people who care about the poor or immigration, you know, we can’t be saying things about immigrants, making generalized statements. And, you know, so we’ve talked with people on the border. We talked with people who’ve been immigrants. And when most of these folks are people who just desperately want a better future than what they have.

[00:35:29] If we’re taking Jesus seriously on the parable of the sheep and the goats, when he says, when he talks about the immigrants and welcoming the stranger. We have to ask, “okay, we might not agree on policy, but we all have to agree that people who are struggling and who are fleeing their countries, we should have compassion for them.” Whatever the answer is.

[00:35:47] Cathy Bien: The other thing, and Adam does this so well with our congregation, is we’re in a time where everyone is looking for hope. People are discouraged. They’re losing hope. And that’s where the church’s message, I believe, can change the world because we have a message of hope and we have to share that with the world.

[00:36:07] Mark Beckwith: As you’re saying that, I’m thinking of the quotation comes from Jim Wallace, “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change.” And then also, I’m thinking of the great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said, “I will not give a nickel for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I will give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity.” And what you are doing, have been doing, is working into that complexity and offering wisdom and grace and a way forward. And I’m just so grateful for who you both are and what you do, because I think it is, in fact, moving the needle.

[00:36:52] And it’s been my honor to have you on this podcast, Reconciliation Roundtable. Adam, how can the audience keep in touch with what you’re doing and what you’re writing and speaking about?

[00:37:05] Adam Hamilton: Well, our website is resurrection.church or cor.org. Either one of those will take you to the same place. And on Facebook, I’m @PastorAdamHamilton.

[00:37:14] There’s some fake Facebook pages out there sometimes, but look for the one I’ve got, I think about 70,000 followers. So look for that one and follow me there. And we share on the Facebook page as well. Twitter as well. @RevAdamHamilton, I think it is. And Instagram, a little on Instagram and Cathy, why don’t you give them once more the website where they can find out more about what’s going on?

[00:37:33] And we posted sermons from the past series. We always tell people if there’s anything in a sermon that’s helpful, take it and use it. It’s yours. But we’ll also be posting the ideas for this coming sermon series in October for people to use. So what is that website again, Cathy?

[00:37:45] Cathy Bien: campaignforkindness.com.

[00:37:55] Adam Hamilton: And our sermon series is, “Jesus, The Golden Rule, and American politics.” At least that’s what we think the titles of the series will be. It’s going to be in October. We’re going to talk about politics and Jesus’ sermon on the mount.

[00:38:05] We’ll talk about Jesus, and Christian nationalism, talking politics without losing your religion, dual citizenship: kingdom and country, and “with malice towards none and charity for all,” will be the last one before the election.

[00:38:16] Mark Beckwith: Thank you for your witness. Thank you for your prophetic voice and prophetic vision that you’ve set, not just before your congregation, but for so many others of us.

[00:38:27] Again, I’m Mark Beckwith, the host of Reconciliation Roundtable. I’m the author of Seeing the Unseen Beyond Prejudice’s Paradigms and Party Lines. And I can be followed on markbeckwith.net: blog posts, and these podcasts. So thank you and blessings to us all.

[00:38:44] Adam Hamilton: Thank you so much for all that you’re doing. You’re an inspiration to us. Thank you.

[00:38:50] Mark Beckwith: Thank you for listening to this episode of Reconciliation Roundtable. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform and visit markbeckwith.net to stay up to date with new episodes, blog content, and other news. Please, if you could, rate and review this podcast on iTunes. It helps new listeners to find us.

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